"But, father,"-Jacob began. "Not a word! Are you not willing to do that much for the sake of having her all your life, and this farm after me? Suppose it is covered with a mortgage, if she is all you say, you two can work it off. Not a word more! It is no lie, after all, that you will tell her." "I am afraid," said Jacob, "that she could not leave her home now. She is too useful there, and the family is so poor."

"Tell them that both your wages, for the first year, shall go to them. It'll be my business to rake and scrape the money together somehow. Say, too, that the housekeeper's place can't be kept for her-must be filled at once. Push matters like a man, if you mean to be a complete one, and bring her here, if she carries no more with her than the clothes on her back!"

During the following days Jacob had time to familiarize his mind with this startling proposal. He knew his father's stubborn will too well to suppose that it could be changed; but the inevitable soon converted itself into the possible and desirable. The sweet face of Susan as she had stood before him in the wheat-field was continually present to his eyes, and ere long he began to place her, in his thoughts, in the old rooms at home, in the garden, among the thickets by the brook, and in Ann Pardon's pleasant parlour. Enough; his father's plan became his own long before the time was out. On his second journey everybody seemed to be an old acquaintance and an intimate friend. It was evening as he approached the Meadows farm, but the younger children recognized him in the dusk, and their cry of, "Oh, here's Jacob!" brought out the farmer and his wife and Susan, with the heartiest of welcomes. They had all missed him, they said,- even the horses and oxen had looked for him, and they were wondering how they should get the oats harvested without him.

Jacob looked at Susan as the farmer said this, and her eyes seemed to answer, "I said nothing, but I knew you would come.' Then, first, he felt sufficient courage for the task before him.

He rose the next morning, before any one was stirring, and waited until she should come down-stairs. The sun had not risen when she appeared, with a milk-pail in each hand, walking unsuspectingly to the cow-yard. He waylaid her, took the pails in his hand and said in nervous haste, "Susan, will you be my wife?"

She stopped as if she had received a sudden blow; then a shy, sweet consent seemed to run

through her heart. "O Jacob!" was all she could say.

"But you will, Susan?" he urged; and then (neither of them exactly knew how it happened) all at once his arms were around her, and they had kissed each other.

'Susan," he said, presently, "I am a poor man-only a farm hand, and must work for my living. You could look for a better husband."

"I could never find a better than you, Jacob." "Would you work with me, too, at the same place?"

"You know I am not afraid of work," she answered, "and I could never want any other lot than yours."

Then he told her the story which his father had prompted. Her face grew bright and happy as she listened, and he saw how from her very heart she accepted the humble fortune. Only the thought of her parents threw a cloud over the new and astonishing vision. Jacob, however, grew bolder as he saw fulfilment of his hope so near. They took the pails and seated themselves beside neighbour cows, one raising objections or misgivings which the other manfully combated. Jacob's earnestness unconsciously ran into his hands, as he discovered when the impatient cow began to snort and kick.

The harvesting of the oats was not commenced that morning. The children were sent away, and there was a council of four persons held in the parlour. The result of mutual protestations and much weeping was, that the farmer and his wife agreed to receive Jacob as a sonin-law; the offer of the wages was four times refused by them, and then accepted; and the chance of their being able to live and labour together was finally decided to be too fortunate to let slip. When the shock and surprise was over, all gradually became cheerful, and, as the matter was more calmly discussed, the first conjectured difficulties somehow resolved themselves into trifles.

It was the simplest and quietest wedding, -at home on an August morning. Farmer Meadows then drove the bridal pair half-way on their journey to the old country tavern, where a fresh conveyance had been engaged for them. The same evening they reached the farmhouse in the valley, and Jacob's happy mood gave place to an anxious uncertainty as he remembered the period of deception upon which Susan was entering. He keenly watched his father's face when they arrived, and was a little relieved when he saw that his wife had made a good first impression.

"So, this is my new housekeeper," said the old man. "I hope you will suit me as well as your husband does."

"I'll do my best, sir," said she; "but you must have patience with me for a few days, until I know your ways and wishes."

"Mr. Flint," said Sally, "shall I get supper ready?"

Susan looked up in astonishment at hearing the name.

"Yes," the old man remarked, "we both have the same name. The fact is, Jacob and I are a sort of relations."

Jacob, in spite of his new happiness, continued ill at ease, although he could not help seeing how his father brightened under Susan's genial influence, how satisfied he was with her quick, neat, exact ways and the cheerfulness with which she fulfilled her duties. At the end of a week the old man counted out the wages agreed upon for both, and his delight culminated at the frank simplicity with which Susan took what she supposed she had fairly earned.

"Jacob," he whispered when she had left the room, "keep quiet one more week, and then I'll let her know."

He had scarcely spoken, when Susan burst into the room again, crying, "Jacob, they are coming, they have come!"

There was a moment's silence; then the farmer's wife, with a visible effort to compose herself, said, "Lucy Meadows, now."

The tears came into Samuel Flint's eyes. "Let us shake hands, Lucy," he said: "my son has married your daughter."

All but Jacob were freshly startled at these words. The two shook hands, and then Samuel, turning to Susan's father, said: And this is your husband, Lucy. I am glad to make his acquaintance."

when we have quietly and comfortably talked the matter over."

They went into the quaint, old-fashioned parlour, which had already been transformed by Susan's care, so that much of its shabbiness was hidden. When all were seated, and Samuel Flint perceived that none of the others knew what to say, he took a resolution which, for a man of his mood and habit of life, required

some courage.

Three of us here are old people," he began, "and the two young ones love each other. It was so long ago, Lucy, that it cannot be laid to my blame if I speak of it now. Your husband, I see, has an honest heart, and will not misunderstand either of us. The same thing often turns up in life; it is one of those secrets that everybody knows, and that everybody talks about except the persons concerned. When ! was a young man, Lucy, I loved you truly, and I faithfully meant to make you my wife." "I thought so too, for a while," said she, very calmly.

Farmer Meadows looked at his wife, and no face was ever more beautiful than his, with that expression of generous pity shining through it.

"You know how I acted," Samuel Flint continued, "but our children must also know that I broke off from you without giving any reason. A woman came between us and made all the mischief. I was considered rich then, and she wanted to secure my money for her daughter. I was an innocent and unsuspecting young man, who believed that everybody else was as good as myself; and the woman never rested until she had turned me from my first love, and fastened me for life to another. Little by little I discovered the truth; I kept the knowledge of the injury to myself; I quickly got rid of the money which had so cursed me, and brought my wife to this, the loneliest and dreariest place in the neighbourhood, where I forced upon her a life of poverty. I thought it was a just revenge, but I was unjust. She really loved me: she was, if not quite without blame in the matter, ignorant of the worst that had been done (I learned all that too late), and she never complained, though the change in me slowly wore out her life. I know now that I was cruel; but at the same time I pun

Jacob's face grew red, and the old habit of hanging his head nearly came back upon him. He knew not what to say, and looked wistfully at his father.

"Come into the house and sit down," said the latter. "I think we shall all feel better

my son. But to him there was one way to make amends. 'I will help him to a wife,' I said, 'who will gladly take poverty with him and for his sake.' I forced him, against his will, to say that he was a hired hand on this place, and that Susan must be content to be a hired housekeeper. Now that I know Susan,

"Jacob Flint!"

The farmer stood up like a man, took Samuel's hand and his wife's, and said in a broken voice: "Lucy, I ask you, too, to forgive him, and I ask you both to be good friends to each other." Susan, dissolved in tears, kissed all of them in turn; but the happiest heart there was Jacob's.

It was now easy for him to confide to his wife the complete story of his troubles, and to find his growing self-reliance strengthened by her quick, intelligent sympathy. The Pardons were better friends than ever, and the fact, which at first created great astonishment in the neighbourhood, that Jacob Flint had really gone upon a journey and brought home a handsome wife, began to change the attitude of the people towards him. The old place was no longer so lonely; the nearest neighbours began to drop in and insist on return visits. Now that Jacob kept his head up, and they got a fair view of his face, they discovered that he was not lacking, after all, in sense or social qualities.

In October, the Whitney place, which had been leased for several years, was advertised to be sold at public sale. The owner had gone to the city and become a successful merchant, had outlived his local attachments, and now took advantage of a rise in real estate to disburden himself of a property which he could not profitably control.

Everybody from far and wide attended the sale, and, when Jacob Flint and his father arrived, everybody said to the former: "Of course you've come to buy, Jacob." But each man laughed at his own smartness, and considered the remark original with himself.

Jacob was no longer annoyed. He laughed, too, and answered: "I'm afraid I can't do that; but I've kept half my word, which is more than most men do."

"Jake's no fool, after all," was whispered behind him.

The bidding commenced, at first very spirited, and then gradually slacking off, as the price mounted above the means of the neighbouring farmers. The chief aspirant was a stranger, a well-dressed man with a lawyer's air, whom nobody knew. After the usual long pauses

VOL. III.

There was a general cry of surprise. All looked at Jacob, whose eyes and mouth showed that he was as dumbfoundered as the rest.

The stranger walked coolly through the midst of the crowd to Samuel Flint, and said, "When shall I have the papers drawn up?"

"As soon as you can," the old man replied; then seizing Jacob by the arm, with the words, "Let's go home now!" he hurried him on.

The explanation soon leaked out. Samuel Flint had not thrown away his wealth, but had put it out of his own hands. It was given privately to trustees, to be held for his son, and returned when the latter should have married with his father's consent. There was more than enough to buy the Whitney place. Jacob and Susan are happy in their stately home, and good as they are happy. If any person in the neighbourhood ever makes use of the phrase "Jacob Flint's Journey," he intends thereby to symbolize the good fortune which sometimes follows honesty, reticence, and shrewdness.

TO A RICH MAN.

If well thou view'st us with no squinted eye,
Thy wealth no richer than my poverty;
No partial judgment, thou wilt quickly rate
My want no poorer than thy rich estate:

Our ends and births alike; in this, as I;
Poor thou wert born, and poor again shalt die.
My little fills my little-wishing mind;
Thou having more than much, yet seekest more:
Who seeks, still wishes what he seeks to find;
Who wishes, wants; and who so wants, is poor;
Then this must follow of necessity-
Poor are thy riches, rich my poverty.

Though still thou gett'st, yet is thy want not spent,

But as thy wealth, so grows thy wealthy itch: But with my little I have much content; Content hath all, and who hath all is rich:

Then this in reason thou must needs confessIf I have little, yet that thou hast less. Whatever man possesses, God hath lent, And to his audit liable is ever, To reckon, how, and where, and when he spent: Then thus thou bragg'st, thou art a great receiver: Little my debt, when little is my store: The morethou hast, thydebt still grows the more. 64

purpose to out-roar a tempest-rang through the ship, "All hands to house top-gallant masts, ahoy!" From that time till we made the land the gale continued to rage with unintermitted violence, to the great delight of the old tars, and the manifest annoyance of the green reefers, of whom we had rather an unusual number on board. If my pen were endued with the slightest portion of the quality which distinguished Hogarth's pencil, I might here give a description of a man-of-war's steerage in a storm, which could not but force a smile from the most saturnine reader. I must own I did not much relish the humour of the scene then-pars magna fui-that is, I was sea-sick myself; but

Quod fuit durum pati-meminisse dulce est; and I have often since, sometimes in my hammock, sometimes during a cold mid watch on deck, burst into a hearty laugh, as the memory of our grotesque distresses, and of the odd figures we cut during that passage, has glanced across my mind.

But the longest day must have an end, and the stiffest breeze cannot last for ever. The wind, which for a fortnight had been blowing as hard as a trumpeter for a wager, blew itself out at last. About dawn on the morning of the day I have alluded to it began to lull, and by the time the sun was fairly out of the water it fell flat calm. It was my morning watch, and what with sea-sickness, fatiguing duty, and being cabined, cribbed, confined for so long a time in my narrow and unaccustomed lodgings, I felt worn out and in no mood to exult in the choice I had made of a profession. I stood holding by one of the belaying-pins of the main fife-rail (for I had not yet, as the sailors phrase it, got my sea-legs aboard), and looking, I suppose, as melancholy as a sick monkey on a lee backstay, when a cry from the foretopsail-yard reached my ear that instantly thrilled to my heart, and set the blood running in a lively current through my veins.

"Land, oh!" cried the jack-tar on the lookout, in a cable-tier voice which seemed to issue from the bottom of his stomach.

I have heard many delightful sounds in my time, but few which seemed to me more pleasant than the rough voice of that vigilant ailor. I do verily believe, that not seven bells (grog time of day) to a thirsty tar, the dinner-bell to a hungry alderman, or the passing-bell of some rich old curmudgeon to an anxious heir, ever gave greater rapture. The how-d'ye-do of a friend, the good-bye of a country cousin, the song of the Signorina, and

Paganini's fiddle, may all have music in them; but the cry of land to a sea-sick midshipman is sweeter than them all.

We made what, in nautical language, is termed a good land-fall-so good, indeed, that it was well for us the night and the wind both ceased when they did; for had they lasted another hour, we should have found ourselves landed, and in a way that even I, much as I wished to set my foot once more on terra firma, should not have felt particularly pleased with. On its becoming light enough to ascertain our whereabout, it was discovered that we were within the very jaws of the Straits, completely landlocked by the "steepy shore," where

Europe and Afric on each other gaze,

and already beginning to feel the influence of the strong and ceaseless easterly current which rushes into the Mediterranean through that passage with a velocity of four or five knots an hour. A gentle land-breeze sprung up in the course of the morning watch, which, though not exactly fair, yet coming from the land of the "dusky Moor," had enough of something in it to enable us to get along at a very tolerable rate, beating with a long and short leg through the Straits.

It would be uncharitable to require that the reader should arrive at the rock by the same sort of zigzag course which we were obliged to pursue; so therefore let him at once suppose himself riding at anchor in the beautiful but unsafe bay of Gibraltar, directly opposite and almost within the very shadow of the grand and gigantic fortress which nature and art seem to have vied with each other in rendering impregnable. No one who has looked on that vast and forted rock, with its huge granite outline shown in bold relief against the clear sky of the south of Europe-its towering and ruin-crowned peaks-its enormous crags, caverns, and precipices—and its rich historical associations, which shed a powerful though vague interest over every feature-can easily forget the strong impression which the first sight of that imposing and magnificent spectacle creates.

The flinty mass rising abruptly to an elevation of 1500 feet, and surrounded on every side by the waters of the Mediterranean, save a narrow slip of level sand which stretches from its northern end and connects it with the mainland, has, added to its other claims to admiration, the strong interest of utter isolation. For a while the spectator gazes on the "stupendous whole" with an expression of pleased wonder at its height, extent, and strength, and